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Dear Oxfam,I have done a yard-sale to raise funds for Syrian people who are refugees.It is not nice for anyone to live in tents in cold. I just don’t agree with it.From Grace (10) and Nina (9),Cabra, Dublin 7.

Sometimes the most powerful words come from children. The above letter to our Dublin office accompanied a cheque for €32.41 for our Syrian emergency response. This donation is most welcome – it will help provide safe drinking water and other aid to Syrian refugees living in camps and experiencing the most difficult of times. But the letter’s message – about what’s fair and what’s right – is just as powerful.

Forced to leave their homes and everything they know behind, Syrian refugees have had to put normal life on hold indefinitely, living in camps and informal settlements many miles from home where basics like a warm place to sleep, enough food to eat and a school to go to are difficult to come by if not impossible.

Hearing about the challenges faced by the Syrian relatives of a family friend and watching coverage of the crisis on the news made Dubliners and best friends Grace and Nina want to help.

Above: Grace and Nina's letter to Oxfam. Grace and Nina telling us their story. A picture from the girls' yard sale for Syrian refugees. Grace's mum, Susan.

“It was really sad and kind of scary for me, so I didn’t really want to look at it,” explains Grace. “But I kind of do now because I want to find out more.”

Grace’s mother Susan spoke to them about the situation faced by Syrian refugees.

“We have a friend whose family are living in the refugee camps near Syria who had to flee their homes,” Susan says. “I had an image in my head of children in the camps not wearing shoes around the time of it being winter and it really kind of hit home. They were freezing cold and they didn’t have the comforts of home in addition to all the trauma they were going through.

“So [Grace and Nina] came back then and said, ‘Yes, we’d like to give the money to Oxfam and to the refugees in the camps’.”

But the yard sale and all the work involved was very much Grace and Nina’s doing. As Susan says, “They’re a pair who come up with ideas and they’re always on a project of some kind or other.”

There was lots to do including posters to make and rice crispie buns to bake. The pair also parted with some favourite toys and the event was a big success.

Nina explains: “I didn’t think it was going to be a big yard sale but then when we were getting everything ready, it was like, ‘Oh my God!’”

The girls have been inspired by what they’ve achieved (they raised a total of €64.82 and divided the funds between Dogs for the Disabled and Oxfam Ireland), so watch this space!

“We want to help refugees even more,” says Grace, while Nina adds: “And doing the yard sale was really fun.”

Out of a total of 22 million people living in Syria before the crisis, more than half the population has been forced to flee their homes, including more than 4 million who have fled to neighbouring countries.

Above:Syrian refugee Ahmad carries his daughter Nour as they walk towards a registration centre for migrants and refugees in Presevo, in southern Serbia. He and the group he's walking with had already travelled for 20 kilometres that day. We have begun a new emergency programme in Serbia to help the thousands like Ahmad and Nour who are fleeing to safety. Photo: Sam Tarling/Oxfam

Along with providing Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon with clean drinking water and relief supplies like blankets and stoves, we are also helping families get the information they need about their rights and connecting them to medical, legal and support services. Other work includes building shower and toilet blocks in camps. We are also providing clean water in Syria itself.

We have also begun an emergency programme in Serbia providing clean water and sanitation to help some of the thousands fleeing to safety, including many Syrians, who will soon face a harsh Balkans winter. Meanwhile in Italy we have programmes providing asylum seekers who have been saved from the Mediterranean Sea with housing, food, psychological support, legal assistance and language classes. We continue to campaign and advocate for an immediate ceasefire and a sustainable and inclusive political solution to the conflict in Syria.

We are also highlighting the individual stories of refugees to make them more visible through the EUsaveLIVES joint campaign with the European Commission.

When we shared Grace and Nina’s letter with colleagues working on the Syria crisis emergency response, the message of support made their day.

To know that people like Grace and Nina care about what’s happening to Syrian refugees and want to help, inspires us all.

By highlighting unfairness and how to do something about it, as they have, the future can be better place.

I’ve worked with Oxfam Ireland many times over the years and was thrilled when they asked me to support the Drop and Shop campaign – which is also a great scheme for you to get involved with.

I’ve always found Oxfam to be a great organisation to work with on shows and shoots – the staff and volunteers really know their stuff about fashion, both current and vintage, and have a great eye for merchandising. These events are the most fun for me to style because you never know what you might find when trawling through the stock.

Working with Oxfam on fashion shows, such as Belfast Fashion Week’s Charity Shop Challenge, always causes quite a stir. Over the years there have been near-riots backstage on more than a few occasions when models spy one-off desirable pieces that they wanted to buy – while at the same time members of the audience mobbed the Oxfam shop manager to buy the pieces straight off the catwalk.

DROP

I recently realised how many clothes I have (a lot), yet I tend to wear so few of them. You know how it is – you throw on whatever is handy, you rely on a certain style formula, a colour palette, a silhouette, a trademark. And there is nothing wrong with that, it’s important to have a personal style that suits you and your lifestyle. Honestly though, it’s easy to go from personal style straight into a style rut. I verge on this sometimes and I’m a stylist! I live and breathe this stuff.

A wardrobe fit to bursting sounds like the ideal scenario for any fashion-conscious person (or in my case, a room overflowing to another room, overflowing to the floor…) but the reality is that we wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. This means the majority of our clothes are sitting there, doing nothing. Getting in our way, occasionally sneaking into the laundry. It makes getting ready in the morning more taxing, as you wade through rails of ex-favourites to find the one thing you are looking for.

But these clothes could be doing something. A big something. Did you know that a high quality/one-off piece like a designer dress or a piece of furniture can raise vital funds and make a big impact on Oxfam’s work worldwide? For example, a jumper sold for £6/€8 at your local Oxfam Ireland shop could help purify around 2,000 litres of water, making it safe to drink for families living in makeshift camps in Nepal.

Take a few hours to go through your wardrobe. I bet you have loads of things you’ve only worn once or twice, or maybe never worn? Try them on. Why did you buy them in the first place? What do they work well with? Do you still like these pieces? Decide what to keep and what to ditch. Get rid of anything you haven’t worn for over 18 months (except occasion clothing and items with sentimental value), anything that no longer fits and anything with the labels still attached.

Bag these items up and drop then to your local Oxfam shop. I now do this regularly and it feels great. The relief of having a nice organised, clear wardrobe is fab. The feel-good factor, knowing that you are doing your bit to help Oxfam fight poverty and save lives in emergencies, is priceless.

There’s an extra pressure in these days of social media and the ever-present camera. With every event and night out charted on our Facebook and Instagram, people are feeling the pressure previously reserved for celebrities – being photographed in the same outfit over and over. It sounds silly but I bet it’s gone through your mind before. What better reason to bag up those old favourites and donate so that someone else has the chance to have a night out in that gorgeous dress and hopefully you can pick up something just as stunning when you #dropandshop – you get 15% discount on the day you drop. Share your experience on social media to be in with the chance of winning a refurbished iPad 2.

SHOP

I’ve been a trawler of charity shops since I was a little kid – first of all spending my pocket money on old Enid Blyton books and Judy annuals, then on slip dresses and grandad cardigans during the grunge years of the ’90s. Here are my top tips.

- Don’t take vintage/second-hand items at face value – body shapes have changed over the last century, so clothing may need alterations. Long skirts can be cut short, necklines altered, garments restyled. You should find a good dressmaker or learn how to use a sewing machine.

- Imagine a piece out of context. On a crowded shelf of scary figurines, or a rail of sad-looking frocks, you must try to see each item as an individual. Pick up every piece and imagine it out of context: in Urban Outfitters or Topshop, say or a cool boutique. Things which look tatty and unloved sometimes just need a bit of styling. Stand back, squint, and imagine how it would look somewhere really chic.

- Charity shopping does take a certain amount of commitment. You can’t just waltz in twice a year and hope to strike gold. Little and often is the best way, dash around your locals on your lunch break at least once a week. Get to know the volunteers so you can ask about stock that hasn’t been put on the floor yet.

- Find out what day your local charity shops receive their deliveries, so you can get first dibs on the good stuff.

- Check for any stains or damages to the garment and be sure it can be repaired.

- With proper vintage clothing, do try things on, and don’t trust the labels – ‘standard’ sizing has varied greatly since it was introduced in the 1950s – so a modern size 10 may find that a size 14 vintage garment is a perfect fit. On that note, different decades’ styles flatter different body shapes – the fit and flare silhouette and strong shoulders of the 1940s flatters pear shapes. The full skirts and cinched waists of the 1950s were designed for the hourglass figures, while apple shapes suit the empire line and shorter hemlines of the sixties. Slender figures can carry off the bias-cut of the 1930s and the long, lean looks of the ’70s.

- It is more environmentally sound to buy second-hand – it is the most stylish form of recycling.

The ’70s is a big trend this season and next, with suede coats and jackets being one of the key pieces so keep an eye out for those. Leather pieces are also great investments with the bonus of already been worn in. Try something a bit different, charity shopping is a great time to take a risk and nab a bargain.

When you take your new finds home, see where they fit with your newly edited wardrobe. Mix and match to create new outfits and create a new personal and ethical style.

Top fashion stylist and designer Sara O’Neill is supporting the Oxfam Ireland Drop and Shop campaign.

There is something for everyone at Oxfam Ireland this Christmas with the Christmas at Oxfam gift range. From retro games to the gift of clean water or Fairtrade chocolates, there’s the perfect present for that big box under the tree as well as a host of novelty stocking-fillers and festive essentials.

We’ve also got the ideal gift for the person who has everything with the Unwrapped range, which supports our life-changing work worldwide and helps those who have lost everything by providing cooking stoves that keep families safe and warm in emergencies as well as helping poor farmers to thrive and lots more besides.

oxfam unwrapped

By purchasing an Unwrapped gift, you’ll be helping people like Yang Pal who lives in UN House in Juba, a camp for internally displaced people. Yang Pal is one of 1.5 million people forced to flee their homes after fighting broke out in South Sudan last December.

A fuel-efficient cooking stove (€9/£8) means that Yang Pal can cook more economically and efficiently as well as keep warm. It also helps keep her safe by reducing the need for women like her to venture out in search of firewood into areas where they are at risk of attack.

Yang says: “[The cooking stove] saves time, as you don’t have to keep adding charcoal and it saves money because you don’t have to keep buying charcoal after the vouchers [also distributed by Oxfam] have been used.”

Above: Melissa Cameron, Oxfam Unwrapped supporter and shop volunteer: "I've always supported Unwrapped. My parents have been supporting Oxfam Canada and buying Unwrapped gifts at Christmas time for as long as I can remember, since I was a kid, so when I moved to Ireland it was just a natural thing to do. You could say it’s a family tradition.

I’ve already bought all my Unwrapped gifts for this year - my sister-in-law is getting Care for a Baby because she just had a baby. My brother is getting School Books and my grandmother is getting Educate a Girl - they both used to be school teachers. I'm vegetarian and I'm making my husband be vegetarian with me so that's why he’s getting A Clutch of Chicks this year. And I’m getting A Goat for my parents as they love animals and a Cooking Stove for my in-laws.

They're great gifts for people who are really hard to buy for or who already have everything. They always love reading about how the gifts help and where the money is going.” Photo: Brian Malone / Oxfam

Whatever Unwrapped gift you decide to buy, Oxfam will ensure that your money has the best possible impact on the communities who need it most. To find out more click here, call 1850 30 40 55 (ROI) or 0800 0 30 40 55 (NI) or visit your local Oxfam shop.

our new gift range

This Christmas, we’ve also added the iPad 2 to our Born Again range of refurbished computers. Priced at just €299/£235, the iPads have been fully restored, tested and given a new lease of life and are the ideal gift for kids, teenagers, students and silver surfers. Born Again iPads and computers (laptops from €189/£149 and desktops from €125/£99) are available online here or at selected Oxfam shops across Ireland.

The rest of the Christmas at Oxfam range is on sale now at Oxfam Ireland’s fifty shops nationwide, with stocking fillers that include ladies and men’s festive socks (€2.49/£1.99), retro games like Jacks, Noughts and Crosses and Tiddlywinks (from €5.99/£4.99) and Fairtrade stationery such as sparkly pens (€1.99/£1.49) and notebooks (€3.49/£2.49), among other gifts.

And for the foodies, there’s a delicious range of festive treats, including Fairtrade Divine Ginger Thins (€4.99/£3.99) and Fairtrade Divine Dark/Milk Chocolate Coins (€2.49/£1.99) as well as Mulled Wine Spices (€3.49/£2.99) – the perfect addition to any Christmas hamper!

There are also Christmas cards (from €1/£0.99 - €5/£3.99), advent calendars (from €3.99/£3.49) and crackers (from €4.99/£3.99) on sale as well as a selection of decorative bells in red and white (€4.99/£3.99).

The Christmas at Oxfam range offers high-quality gifts that give back. The profits from the sale of each Christmas gift will support our work worldwide, helping to give hope this season to families and communities living in extreme poverty or affected by emergency situations like South Sudan or Syria.

Two ships sat wedged on the land. Underneath their hulks lay the remains of houses and the bodies of those who called them home.

All around lay flattened. On a piece of corrugated iron read the words ‘HELP ME’.

A teddy bear was face-down nearby and underfoot were the remants of everyday life as we know it; school books, shampoo bottles and plates among the debris.

I was in the Barangay 70 and 69 district in Tacloban city in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. Earlier that day we saw bodies on the streets and drove past an evacuation centre which collapsed on top of those who had sought safety there, the steel structure twisted horribly by the storm.

More than 5,000 people were killed and 4 million were forced from their homes as Haiyan (or Yolanda as it’s known in the Philippines) wove its destructive path through the central Philippines. It was the strongest tropical cyclone on record to make landfall.

Amid the devastation, children played in the street and begged us to take their smiling pictures. Nearby, an Oxfam water bladder was providing clean and safe water. Opposite stood one of another Oxfam tap.

In spite of their overwhelming loss, people were trying to get back to some sort of sense of normality. Stalls were opening again on the side of the roads and the most popular items were torches, proving that demand dictates the market no matter what the circumstances.

Everywhere we went in the Philippines, people on spotting the Oxfam t-shirt would ask where we were from and express their gratitude for the support coming from the island of Ireland at this most difficult of times. Their resilience stunned us.

This was my first time in Asia and my first experience witnessing our humanitarian work in action. It was a real privilege to see how the generous donations of people across the island of Ireland translated into positive results on the ground.

From those who came into our shops with cheques written out to the appeal (the odd one written in four figures), to children who saved up their pocket money, along with bucket-shaking, events and even a charity single, we are incredibly grateful for your support. 100% of the funds raised went to our emergency response and had a positive and long-lasting impact.

Photos:

Top left: Seaweed farms like Marissa Gegante’s on Bantayan island were destroyed by the typhoon. She says: “We are thankful again for having Oxfam. They helped us to recover from the typhoon and to the donors of the livelihood programme and cash-for-work – and for the love we received from them. God bless Oxfam.” Tessa Bunney/Oxfam.

Top right: Enfracian Boca, pictured with her granddaughter Marcy Anne Fuentes (8 months), received an Oxfam hygiene kit containing essential items including soap, detergent, toothpaste, and underwear. She says: “Thank you to Oxfam for the hygiene kit. It has been very useful – we have used everything, especially the soap.” Eleanor Farmer/Oxfam.

Bottom left: Arlene Arceo, Manager of Latufa Farmers' Association, says: “We thank Oxfam for helping us to recover after the super typhoon Yolanda. You give us new hope for our livelihoods and a new job on our coconut lumber project.” Eleanor Farmer/Oxfam.

Bottom right: Kenneth Caneda stands in front of two Oxfam latrines in Tacloban. “I use these Oxfam toilets,” he says. “We have no other toilets here. Also thank you for the cash for work for clearing the paths here.” Eleanor Farmer/Oxfam.

Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we were able to not only provide vital aid such as food, clean water, sanitation and shelter in the immediate aftermath but also be there for long-haul, helping people to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

Typhoon Haiyan delivered a double blow. In the short term, it left more than 14.1 million people in need of immediate, life-saving assistance. But it also pushed millions of poor people further into poverty. Rice crops, coconut trees and fishing boats were wiped out, leaving people struggling to grow food and earn an income.

In response, we have reached more than 860,000 people so far. Our first priority was to provide life-saving assistance, such as clean water, toilets, hygiene kits, and cash to buy food and other essentials. We then began helping people to recover the livelihoods that had been destroyed by the disaster.

For example, we provided rice seeds for farmers to replant lost crops and chainsaws for clearing fallen trees that obstructed fields.

One year on from the disaster, the emergency phase of our response has finished. We’re now focusing on long-term recovery and rehabilitation. One way we’re doing this is by planning how water and sanitation facilities will be managed on a permanent basis. We’re also looking at how people will be able to earn a living.

We need to ensure that communities not only recover, but are more prepared for the next disaster.

The Philippines is the third most disaster-prone country in the world. In the face of predictions of more extreme weather, our new report Can’t Afford to Wait highlights the importance of being prepared for climate-related risks. It follows a warning last week from experts at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the irreversible impact of climate change on people and eco systems. But there is a solution, if we urgently reduce carbon emissions.

Our Philippines campaign called #MakeTheRightMove calls on the Filipino government to get resettlement and rehabilitation efforts right, and immediately put in place their disaster preparedness and climate change adaptation plans.

As the world reflects on the events of November 8th, 2013, for those grieving nothing can ever replace their loss.

All we can do is continue to provide life-saving and life-changing support in times of crisis, and ensure people can face the future prepared, come what may.